Skyrme Neutron Stars

Abstract

The present thesis aims to develop a realistic description of highly dense nuclear matter and neutron stars within the Skyrme model. For this purpose, the properties of neutron stars and the problem of ultra-dense nuclear matter are introduced. The main features of the Skyrme model and the previous attempts to reproduce neutron stars are reviewed to introduce a physically motivated generalization of the model that yields remarkable results for the neutron stars observables. We establish the basis for a consistent description of infinite nuclear matter at each range of densities and perform the standard quantization procedure to account for the isospinasymmetric effects. Finally, we consider the kaon condensation in the neutron star cores, and we include ρ mesons as a viable solution to the compression modulus problem.